Music Bits: Infants, Synch

Infants Benefit from Music

Research conducted at McMaster University shows that year-old infants who interact with their parents through music benefit in ways that passive listeners do not:

Babies from the interactive classes showed better early communication skills, like pointing at objects that are out of reach, or waving goodbye. Socially, these babies also smiled more, were easier to soothe, and showed less distress when things were unfamiliar or didn't go their way... 

Babies from the interactive classes showed better early communication skills, like pointing at objects that are out of reach, or waving goodbye. Socially, these babies also smiled more, were easier to soothe, and showed less distress when things were unfamiliar or didn't go their way.

Different People Respond to Music in Highly Similar Ways

Researchers at Stanford used FMRI to investigate neural response to classical music:

"We spend a lot of time listening to music—often in groups, and often in conjunction with synchronized movement and dance," said Vinod Menon, PhD, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and the study's senior author. "Here, we've shown for the first time that despite our individual differences in musical experiences and preferences, classical music elicits a highly consistent pattern of activity across individuals in several brain structures including those involved in movement planning, memory and attention."